Contents

Characteristics

They were broader in build than the other Hobbits, and had large hands and feet. Among the Hobbits, the Stoors most resembled Men.

Stoors were the only Hobbits who normally grew facial hair. A habit which set them apart from the Harfoots who lived in the mountain foothills, and the Fallohides who lived in forests far to the north, was that many Stoors used boats, and could swim. They also wore boots.

History

The Stoors are believed to live in the southern vales of Anduin. During the Hobbit Wandering Days, after the Harfoots had migrated westward in Third Age 1050, and the Fallohides followed them about a century later, the Stoors long remained back in the vale of Anduin, but between T.A.1150 and 1300 they, too migrated west.[2]

Unlike the other Hobbit-kinds they took the Redhorn Pass where many Stoors branched off and moved south to the Angle of Eriador south of Rivendell and mingled with the Harfoots and Fallohides that lived there; but most went to Dunland (Swanfleet near Tharbad) which most resembled their old lands. There they came into contact with the Dunlendings. This contact altered their speech slightly, mostly by picking up a few Dunlending words.

A hundred years later Angmar began to threaten Eriador and many Stoors of the Angle fled south to their kin in Dunland where they became a woodland people;[3] others returned to Rhovanion and settled the Gladden Fields, becoming riverland people Déagol and Sméagol belonged to (c. T.A.2430). There they had a matriarchal society[4]. What became of those Stoors and whether they rejoined their folk in Eriador, no history tells.

The Stoors of Dunland moved back north to join the other Hobbits in colonizing the Shire. The result was that places that were settled by Stoors have some slight linguistic oddities due to their time of separation and contact with the Dunlendings. The three original Hobbit-kinds merged and blended in the centuries since the settlement of the Shire, but regional variations remained.[1]

However, most Stoors fled to the north and west, ending up in the newly founded Shire around 1630.[2] There they mingled with the Harfoots and Fallohides, becoming the Shire-folk however they predominantly stayed in Eastfarthing and then migrated to Buckland.